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Web backup service Dropmysite is making a big push into Japan after it announced a partnership with GMO Cloud. The deal sees the Japanese hosting company — an arm of the GMO Internet Group — invest in the Singapore-based startup and begin reselling its email backup service Dropymyemail in the country.

The deal is for Dropmyemail Business, its solution for small business and enterprise users rather than consumers. GMO Cloud counts more than 130,000 businesses as customers in Japan and it says it has 6,000 sales partners in the country. That’s going to give Dropmyemail a huge boost in visibility, but the company also has a global footprint. Dropmysite founder John Fearon tells TNW that this is the company’s first official public partnership and it will “help us expand globally”.

The two companies are also jointly developing a smartphone app for Dropmyemail. The app will lean on GMO’s Cloud resources and Dropmyemail’s technical knowledge and is expected to be released “within a relatively short timeframe”. Fearon reveals that the app will be global, but the companies may also release a localized version for customers in Japan.

The investment figure has not been disclosed, but the company says it is ‘six figures’ and it takes Dropmysite to more than $1 million in funding to date.

It’s worth taking a moment to explain the difference between Dropmysite and Dropmyemail. Dropmysite is the registered company and the Web backup service of the same name was its first product. Dropmyemail is a service that was introduced later and it quickly became the company’s most popular product. Today it handles 3TB of data, Fearon tells us.

The Dropymysite chief says there is another “big deal” coming up which the company is preparing to announce, and we can expect more global partners to come aboard in due course.